AFAIK the "next" LW 4.11 beta will have improvements for OSX issues. So hopefully this will improve things for you too. I don't know when it will be released but they're working on such OSX issues experienced.
The next best thing you can do to improve the environment for running LW is upgrade to Tiger 10.4 & update your java from 1.4.2 to 1.5
Java 1.5 on some systems seems to make a particular improvement. But on others the improvements only seem minimal.
Just make sure your incomplete files are kept to a minimum & your shares are less than 2,000
Tip: Purge the Downloads Queue!
Following these tips will reduce chances of such problems! Unfotunately OSX's Java is not as efficient as it should be!